Humble Mechanic – Page 20 – Humble Mechanic

Does My Car Really Need This Service ~ Engine Air Filter

Top is a dirty air filter, the bottom is new

The engine air filter may be one of the most up sold items in the entire automotive world. But do you really need to have your air filter replaced? Today we will talk about some of the reasons why you may need a new engine air filter. We will also look at how you can be sure you actually need a new one.

What is the Engine Air Filter
It may come as a big surprise, but the engine air filter, filters AIR! Yes that is me being slightly sarcastic. There is really no need to over complicate what an air filter does. As air is pulled into the engine, the filter prevents debris from getting in the engine. It really is as simple as that.

Why is it important?
Well we answered this question above. The better question is, what happens when an air filter is bad. In this case bad means:

Dirty
A dirty air filter will cause your engine to work harder. That can mean decreased MPG, and a reduction in power
Wrong, or improper fitment
This can cause a number of issues. An air filter that does not fit properly can allow debris into the engine. It can also alter the flow of air into the engine. In some cases this can fool the sensor that monitors the flow of air into the engine. This can lead to a check engine light, and poor MPG.
Old and damaged
An old air filter can actually come apart. On top of allowing debris in the engine, the engine can suck parts of the air filter in to the engine. This can cause damage to the engine.

How do I know if I need a new air filter
The great thing about air filters is it can be easy to tell if you need a new one.

Follow the owners book
Most car manufacturers have a replacement interval. That interval is a great guideline to follow. Just remember that manufacturer inOtervals do not apply to everyone. For example if you live near the beach you need to replace your filter more often. Sand will clog a filter pretty fast.

Here, the top filter is new, and the bottom one is dirty
Visual inspection
This is the only way to if you need a filter replacement. Here are a few things that you can look for:
- Excessive dirt or sand
- Oil saturation, this is can be the result of another problem. Do not just replace the filter if you find oil saturation.
- Foreign objects, yep, it could be anything from a little critter to a Hot Wheel. None of those things belong on your air filter.

Do you REALLY need a new air filter?
This one depends on the condition of the air filter in your car. If the filter is dirty replace it. If it is clogged up, or falling apart replace it. Let’s say that a service place recommends you replace the filter because “it is dirty”. You should do what I always recommend and ask to see it. If the service department does not have the filter at the ready, they may not have inspected it. If they can show you the dirty filter from your car, ask to see a new one. This will let you see how bad the filter is. It will also let you check and make sure they are using the right filter.

If you have any further questions about replacing or inspecting an engine air filter, please post them in the comments below. Odds are if you have a question, tons of other folks have that same question. So please feel free to post them below.

I also want to take a second to thank you all for hanging in with me while I moved. It was a crazy busy, and stressful time. We are finally getting things back on track. I should be bringing the Cabby, aka Luv A Dub, home this week. I can’t wait to get back to working on her.

February 25, 2013/19 Comments/by Charles

Humble Mechanic

Delays In Responses And Support

Here is a little tease, this is the view from our new back deck.

Hi everyone, I hope you are all doing really well. I wanted to let you all know that it is crunch time for us with the move. Because of that, we may be with out internet for a few days.

Due to lack of internet, and the pure madness that is involved with moving, I may not be as readily available as I normally am. If you need some help, have any questions or just want to say hi, PLEASE feel free to shoot me an email(charles at Humblemechanic com) or use this contact me form. I will read it asap, I just may not be able to respond right away.

I have also been getting a lot of emails asking when the blog posts will be coming back. Thank you to everyone who has done that. It really keeps me motivated. I will be resuming daily posts asap. We will be back and the blog will be the best it has ever been.

February 7, 2013/1 Comment/by Charles

Humble Mechanic

The Trouble With Trouble Shooting And Car Diagnostics

Finding damage like this can be rare

We have talked before about the diagnostic process that auto mechanics must follow. Starting with the basics, getting good information and being thorough are vital to repairing cars. There are times however that all the processes and information in the world do not guarantee a proper diagnosis.

Yesterday I spent the about half the day with a QTM working on a car. The QTM is a regional tech that travels to dealers. He deals with new cars, cars that have multiple repairs, and the extra crazy problems. The QTM has a lot more resources than we do at the dealership level. On top of that, these guys are REALLY smart. The kind of folks that will forget more than guys like me will ever know.

The QTM and I were working on a 2013 Jetta Hybrid. The customer’s concern was the car would shut off. It was shutting off differently than it is programmed to. We went round and round with the car, doing test after test, inspection after inspection. All to find NOTHING! Well, not exactly nothing, but nothing final. There was no “Ah Ha, here is the problem” moment. There was a lot of “well, this might be it,” and “it could be the issue”.

Not finding the exact problem is a very common thing. Many times we have to focus on the part that makes the most sense. Or the part that is the least crazy(seriously). So how does an auto mechanic fix your car right the first time? Here are a few things that I use to help narrow down a failed part:\

Known good parts.
The great thing about being at a dealer is the ability to swap parts. Taking a part off a new car to see the change. If a sensor is not reading right and I swap the sensor, I find out if the sensor was good, if the wiring was good, and the module the controls it.
Comparable Vehicles
This is an easier step than actually swapping a part. I can read sensor values from both cars. That will give me an idea of what the car should see. Comparing that to the car with the issue, and using confirm failures.
Experience
This is the biggest and best tool in a mechanic’s tool box. The more problems a mechanic sees, the more they are prepared to deal with new issues. That doesn’t mean a they will not get stuff on problems. It just means they dig through them faster.

Like I said, even with all the proper information, a mechanic doesn’t always know 100% if a repair will be successful. Now if a tire has a big spike in the side of it, we KNOW that is why it is flat. Check engine lights and drive-ability issues are generally not as cut and dry. There are times when we need to roll the dice on a repair. I say it all the time, it is great to be a lucky mechanic.

Don’t forget that you can avoid the late post to Facebook, or missing a post by signing up for email updates. It’s easy, just fill out the box in the upper right of the page. You will be the first to get all the good info. I still like when you follow me on all the social media places, we have some fun times. Use the icons on the right. They take you right where you need to go.

Thank you all for the kind words about the new house. Jenn (my wife) and I are really excited. She is even more excited than I am. Fellas you know how important that is! 🙂

January 24, 2013/10 Comments/by Charles

Humble Mechanic

Where Has Your Mechanic Been?

Happy Monday everyone! I hope that you all had a great weekend. If you are a Hockey fan, then you should be pretty excited. Between Hockey, and NFL playoffs it was a fun sports weekend.

Today I need to talk to all of you about a few things. If you have been following the blog for a while, you know that I try to make about 5 posts a week. Over the last few weeks, that has not been happening. Because I am 100% open with you guys, I need to fill you in.

In early November, my wife and I decided to move. We wanted to get some more land. Something that we could do more with than our little lot. Plus have room to build a sweet shop. 😉 We spent about a month getting our house ready to go on the market. It took about 40 hours for us to sell our house. It was really awesome. We found a house we liked. The best part was, it had 5 acres. Plenty of room for a shop.

I am a pretty cautious guy when it comes to big decisions. We also had an awesome realtor that told us to do ALL the inspections. We did all the inspections and tests that we could. At first the reports came back pretty good. A few little things to be repaired, but nothing crazy. That is until the water test came back. We found out that the water had ~160% the acceptable amount of lead. We requested that the seller install a whole house filter system. The seller didn’t want to do that. He drug his feet and that gave us time to do a ton of research. In that time we found that the company behind the lot was polluting the entire area. Sadly we had to terminate our contract.

At this point we were 2 weeks from closing on our old house. We had back up houses, and no time. We could have rented an apartment, but with 3 dogs that is almost impossible. Jenn and I spent 5 days non stop looking at houses. Most of them were awful. If you have ever bought/sold a house you know how stressful all this can be.

It turns out the lady buying our house got a USDA loan. That is some type of government backed loan. Due to the holidays, there were really backed up. Thank goodness we were able to push back the closing date on our current house. We finally found a really great house. We had to sacrifice a few things, but I think it will be a great move. The garage is 22×28 and might be tall enough for a lift 😉 As of right now we are waiting to see if they accept our offer. I am ready for this all to be over

I hate that I have missed posted for you guys. Also, if you have emailed me and I didn’t respond, I am very sorry. Feel free to email me back, or contact me with that form. Once we know exactly what is going on with the house, The blog will be back to normal. I will also be able to get back to working on the Cabby.

I want to thank you all for hanging in there with me. It has been a incredibly stressful month. I really do appreciate each of you. So stick around, follow of Facebook or Instagram, or Pinterest. I am hoping that the blog will be back to normal in a week or so.

January 7, 2013/15 Comments/by Charles

Humble Mechanic, Shop Shots

Shop Shots Volume 42 Insider Pictures of Automotive Service

Happy Wednesday everyone. Thanks for tuning in to this weeks Shop Shots. These are some of the behind the scenes pictures from a VW service department. You will see cars torn apart. The crazy way that things break, and the goofy things that customers do to their cars.

I have been asked what a damaged/worn bushing looks like many times before. I finally got a great picture of what that looks like. This is an upper control arm on a 2003 Passat. If you look right at the tip of the arrow I added, you will see a crack. That crack runs all around the bushing.

This car came in with a suspension noise. The more you turned the wheel, the worse the noise got. Broken bushings can cause a clunk, squeak, or thud. When a bushings breaks like this it puts more strain on the rest of the suspension. That can cause premature wear on the other components. This Passat got new control arms that come with new bushings.

Let’s keep the Passat theme rolling. This Passat came in for a water leak. After some checking, the mechanic next to me found that the heater core was leaking. The heater core is a small radiator behind the dash of your car. Coolant moves through the heater core. As air moves across the heater core it is heated. Bam, your car has heat.

In order to replace a leaking heater core, the dash must come out of the car. It’s almost like the heater core is installed, then the rest of the interior is installed around it. The job is not that bad. It’s a lot of parts to take off. The only bad thing is these cars are getting old. That means the plastic trim can be brittle, and break very easy. We generally have to tell customers there may be some breakage. Sadly it’s almost unavoidable.

Here is a rare shot of a water leak in action. You are looking behind the headliner of a Tiguan. This tube is the drain tube. All VW sunroofs have a channel to catch any water that makes it past the seal. Some times the tube gets clogged, and water backs up in the channel. The water will leak past the drain tube on to the headliner.

The repair for this is to add a sealant to the tube. It’s a pretty easy repair. The worst part about this job is cleaning up the water.

We don’t see a ton of internal engine damage. When we do, it’s generally pretty cool to see. This is a bearing for the cam shaft. The cam shaft does not ride on the bearing. It actually rides on a very thin film of oil. Many times we don’t know exactly what happened here. When we pulled the oil pan down, there were little ribbons on metal in the oil. It looks like some of that metal got into the bearing.

Because we never found the exact cause of the damage, we have to quote an engine and turbo charger. If we were just to quote the top end of the engine, we might have missed the actual failure.

Well that wraps up another volume of Shop Shots. I try and say it from time to time, but this is totally my favorite posts to do. I have a few other updates for you guys. As some of you know, we put our house up for sale a few weeks ago. We sold our house in about 40 hours. We also found a new place. We will be moving in January. I am sure there will be a new blog coming. I want to catalog all the things that we do to the property.

December 19, 2012/2 Comments/by Charles

Humble Mechanic

The Best Time To Bring Your Car For Service

Happy Tuesday everyone. Can you believe that it is just 1 week until Christmas? If you don’t celebrate Christmas, then you can look forward to having an extra day off of work, Ha. If you still need to get a gift for a tool fan, or need a different last minute gift, check out my Holiday Tool Buying Guide. All right, let’s get into today’s topic. The BEST time to bring your car in for service.

The best time to bring your car in for service is when it is due. I think we can all agree on that. What I want to share with you all today is the best time and date to bring your car to the shop. Before we get rolling, please don’t postpone your service too long. If your due for service bring your car in.

There are several times during the year that shops are slow. At my dealer we are really slow:

Most of April
This is due to tax season.
The week between Christmas and New Years
Late January
Folks are waiting to see if they are getting a tax refund
The few days following most holidays
Any time the weather is bad

If you can plan your service for a snowy day in early April, you are gold.

You might be wondering why you want to have your car serviced when a shop is slow. The answer is simple. Slow times mean better deals for customers. If I have been standing around all day and a customer comes in needing some work. I will me more likely to toss a light bulb in for free so a customer will buy a brake job.

Service advisors and techs are always more flexible when times are slow. You might be able to haggle the price of a bill. Now if you are just in for an oil change, don’t plan on getting a discount. If you are due for a timing belt you have some room to deal. This strategy works. A customer that is willing to brave a snow storm gets the all star treatment.

What about time of day? I don’t know there is a best time of day to bring your car in for service. I can tell you there is a worst. The worst times of the day to bring your car for service are

Just before lunch.
This puts the tech in a hurry to get your car done before their lunch break. A good rule is to never get in between a mechanic and food. Plus you don’t want a mechanic to rush though a service and risk forgetting something.
Right at the end of the day.
The same rules for lunch apply to the end of the day. If it’s something simple, like a light bulb, don’t worry about it. But I would not recommend bringing your car with a strange dash rattle in at 5:45. That is something that needs time to fix.

I think that asking your shop or mechanic when they are slow is the best way to know. All shops are different. Some may be really busy during tax time. This is just another little trick to save some money on repairs.

What do you guys think? Is bringing your car in when a shop is slow worth the effort? Go ahead and chime in the comments and let me know what you think.

December 18, 2012/6 Comments/by Charles

Humble Mechanic

Does My Car Really Need This Service ~ Tires

Next up in the “Does my car REALLY need this service” we have tires! Today we will talk about

When to rotate, and when to NOT rotate
Why balancing is important
When you should replace your tires

If you want to learn a little more about tires, check out Understanding Your Vehicle’s Tires. That breaks down the parts of tires, how to read the sizes, and tons more great information.

Why are tires important?
Consider that your tires provide 100% contact with the road. That means every bit of acceleration, and braking rely on just a few square inches of contact pattern. All 4000lbs of your car are riding down the road on that little spot. We need to make sure we get the most out of that contact area.

What are the types of tire services?
There is a heck of a lot that goes into making a tire. The good thing is the average driver doesn’t need to worry about that. All we need to worry about is keeping our tires in tip top shape. Here are the basic services your mechanic can perform on tires.

Rotation
This is where you would move the front tires to the back, and the back tires to the front.
Rotate and Balance
Here your wheel and tire assembly is put on a machine and balanced. Weights are added to off set heavy spots in the tire. Generally the tires are rotated here too.
New tires
When your old tires are worn out, it’s time for new ones. After a new tire is mounted on a wheel, it is balanced too
Flat repair
If you get a nail or something in a tire, it may be repairable. I recommend having a tire repaired. The plug kits they sell at stores are okay, but a professional repair is best

Pretty simple right? There is not too much to maintaining tires.

When to rotate, and when to not rotate
This is the most affordable way to prolong the life of your tires. Well, this and keeping the pressures set properly. You really can’t over rotate your tires. Plus when your mechanic takes the tires off, he will generally look at your brakes too. There is no harm in rotating your tires every time you have the oil changed.

There are times when you do not want to rotate your tires. If rotating your tires will put bad tires on the rear, DO NOT ROTATE. You want to keep your best tires on the back.

Why is balancing so important.
Your riding down the highway. Your steering wheel is shaking back and forth making you crazy. You might just have a tire out of balance. If you have a tire that is vibrating bad enough to feel, you need to get your tires balanced.

There is also a good case for having your tire balance checked. Vibrations can develop slowly. You might have a slight vibration that is now just a normal for your car. There is also the extra wear on the tires. The more a tire is out of balance, the more it can hop, and shimmy. that can cause abnormal tire wear. The only repair for abnormally worn tires is replacement.

When do tires need to be replaced.
So you have properly rotated your tires, and kept them balanced too. At some point all tires wear out. How do you know if they need to be replaced? There are a few hard rules:

Any tire at or below 2/32 of tread
A tire that is older than 6 years old(this one shocked me too)
Any tire with side wall damage.
Any tire with cords, or belts showing, or worn into the secondary rubber
Severely dry rotted tires
If the shoulder of the tire gets punctured. You can’t safely repair that.

Now those are the rules when a tire MUST be replaced. When a tire gets down to about 4/32 of tread, it’s time to get them replaced. Sure you can get a few thousand more miles out of them. But they are not as safe as they were. Is rolling the dice on your safety and the safety of other on the road really worth it?

So do you really need this?
This is one service, or 3 to be exact, that really depend on the condition of your tires. If they don’t fall into the list directly above, you may be able to wait a little while. Just remember that your tires are one of the most important safety features!

Rotate
Go ahead and do it. The service is very cheap ($20 or so) service to prolong your very expensive tires
Rotate and Balance
I like to balance my tires every other oil change. Again it’s a very cheap($40 or so) service. Plus driving a car with a vibration can be maddening.
Replacing tires
follow the rules I posted above. If you are not sure, have your mechanic show you why you need new tires. 4/32 is the measurement that you need to really consider new tires. 2/32 is MUST REPLACE. Just for prospective, most new tires are 11/32

Now you can feel good about getting that tire rotation, balance or replacement. If you have a service you would like added to the series, please post it below in the comments.

If you have a tool fan on your gift list this year, check out my Holiday Tool Buying Guide. There are some great and affordable suggestions for buying tools as gifts. Check it out and pass it along. Also, be sure to sign up for email updates. You wont miss any posts, and I don’t spam. Okay, one more thing.

December 17, 2012/13 Comments/by Charles